Bill Chappell

Bill Chappell is a writer and producer who currently works on The Two Way, NPR's flagship news portal. In the past, he has edited and coordinated digital features for Morning Edition and Fresh Air, in addition to editing the rundown of All Things Considered. He frequently contributes to other NPR blogs, such as All Tech Considered and The Salt.

Chappell's work at NPR has ranged from being the site's first full-time homepage editor to being the lead writer and editor on the London 2012 Olympics blog, The Torch. His assignments have included being the lead web producer for NPR's trip to Asia's Grand Trunk Road, as well as establishing the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps on NPR.org.

In 2009, Chappell was a key editorial member of the small team that redesigned NPR's web site. One year later, the site won its first Peabody Award, along with the National Press Foundation's Excellence in Online Journalism award.

At NPR, Chappell has trained both digital and radio staff to use digital tools to tell compelling stories, in addition to "evangelizing" — promoting more collaboration between legacy and digital departments.

Prior to joining NPR in late 2003, Chappell worked on the Assignment Desk at CNN International, handling coverage in areas from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, and coordinating CNN's pool coverage out of Qatar during the Iraq war.

Chappell's work for CNN also included producing Web stories and editing digital video for SI.com, and editing and producing stories for CNN.com's features division.

Before joining CNN, Chappell wrote about movies, restaurants and music for alternative weeklies, in addition to his first job: editing the police blotter.

A holder of bachelor's degrees in English and History from the University of Georgia, he attended graduate school for English Literature at the University of South Carolina.

Marking the day in 1941 that thrust the U.S. into World War II, Americans are honoring veterans and remembering those who lost their lives in Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. We're also remembering how the nation responded to what President Franklin Roosevelt called a "date which will live in infamy."

Pope Francis is calling on those who use and control the media to avoid disinformation and "the sickness of coprophilia" — comparing a love of scandal to an abnormal interest in feces that can also include elements of sexual arousal.

An obsession with scandal can do great harm, Francis said Wednesday, in remarks that also cited people's tendency toward coprophagia (the eating of feces).

Crews have recovered 21 bodies from the site of a Pakistan International Airlines flight that crashed north of Islamabad on Wednesday. Search teams were still working to find other victims in the crash of the plane carrying 48 people, including former pop singer Junaid Jamshed, according to local media.

Granting the request of relatives of victims of the Newtown school shootings, Connecticut's Supreme Court has accepted their lawsuit against Remington Arms, maker of the rifle that killed 20 students and six teachers in 2012.

Citing Belgian beer's integral role in social and culinary life, UNESCO is putting the country's rich brewing scene (with nearly 1,500 styles) on its list representing the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Belgium's beer culture is one of 16 new additions that were announced Thursday.

Other honorees include the making of flatbread in Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere; Cuba's rumba music, Egypt's Tahteeb stick game, and long-observed festivals in Japan, France, Spain and Greece.

It all started with a report of a mountain lion sighting in a city park. That's when police in Gardner, Kan., decided to install trail cameras — but instead of cougars, the cameras captured scenes of costumed people romping in the park, dressed as gorillas and, in one case, a beer-drinking Santa.

Congress has reached a compromise on the Pentagon's effort to claw back millions of dollars in bonuses paid by the California National Guard, agreeing to forgive the debt in cases where soldiers "knew or reasonably should have known" they were ineligible to receive the money.

For the first time in eight years, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has agreed to cut oil output, ratcheting down production by 1.2 million barrels per day in hopes of stabilizing the global oil market. News of the deal sent oil futures higher Wednesday morning.

With the cut, OPEC's production will drop to 32.5 million barrels a day, effective on Jan. 1, 2017.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she'll seek another term in the office she's held since 2005, holding a news conference Sunday that ends speculation at a time of intense change in the European Union.

Merkel, 62, made it official in a news conference held by her party, the Christian Democratic Union.

More than a week after initial returns showed him narrowly beating Gov. Pat McCrory, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has added to his lead, while several counties have rejected Republicans' complaints and calls for a recount. The final tally is ongoing.

One day after vandals hit their playground at Brooklyn's Adam Yauch Park, kids took it back Saturday, adorning a make-believe train with hearts and flowers and replacing a message of hate with one of love.

Facebook could start labeling stories that might be false, company founder Mark Zuckerberg says, laying out options for how the site handles what he calls "misinformation." Other ideas include automatic detection of potentially false stories and easier flagging by users.

"While the percentage of misinformation is relatively small, we have much more work ahead on our roadmap," Zuckerberg wrote in a posting to his Facebook profile last night.

President Obama has acknowledged a "bumpy phase" in politics — but he said a majority of Americans are comfortable with the pace of globalization, and he also said it's up to leaders to give people a sense of control and confidence about the future.

The president spoke during a joint news conference with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Obama's sixth and final presidential visit to Germany — the country where he seized international stature back in 2008, when the then-senator addressed a massive crowd during a campaign visit to Berlin.

Saying that "it felt really good" to step down, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, 75, says he has submitted his letter of resignation. Clapper revealed the news as he testified Thursday before the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

Its official name is the perigee-syzygy, meaning the moon is both full and closest to Earth. But many call it the supermoon, and Monday's version will be a "showstopper," NASA says. It's the nearest supermoon in almost 70 years — and we won't see another like it until 2034.

"When a full moon makes its closest pass to Earth in its orbit it appears up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter, making it a supermoon," NASA says.